A goodbye for my father

If I close my eyes, I can see her: an 8 year old girl standing in a one-piece bathing suit, hair wet, cheeks sunburned, a towel thrown over her shoulders. Behind her you can see the dock stretching into the lake, and a Sunfish with its single mast jutting up into the blue sky.

Next to her is a picnic table laden with food, and a partially eaten birthday cake. Crushed wrapping paper in one hand, in the other hand she’s holding a black plastic case, open to show off the Timex watch, her birthday present.

She is flush and happy with a day spent on the lake, mostly on the water, her father teaching her how to sail. And then the cake, the candles and the singing, the first adult gift of her life.

Eyes still closed, I think of my father now, heart weak, lungs no longer able to use the air they struggle to take in, kidneys failing, still and silent only because of the morphine.

That once powerful man is gone, and the brief memories of the arguments, the anger, the accusations and recriminations, the power struggle and the rebellion just don’t matter.

All I can see now, 42 years later, is that 8 year old girl, happy and laughing, having been given the gift of time.